“Reapply this poultice every day for a week. You will feel much better by then.” He smiled as he looked the woman in her eyes. There were many ways to heal. He remembered the way the warmth and light of healing seemed to wash over the wan and shivering old man after the tent maker prayed and laid hands on him. And soon every ailing person on the island had come complaining of this ache or that ailment, and all walked away well. Sometimes it happened that way, but usually it was the simple, ordinary, everyday remedies that brought comfort and gradual healing. Or not, and the patient died, despite his years of training and practice. Everyone eventually dies of something, and will, until the Master returns.

“I can pay you something next week,” offered the old woman, her voice trembling, trying to lift each word up as a hand is raised in supplication.

“No need,” he told her. “Someday help someone else. That is payment enough.” Truly, seeing the gratitude suffuse her wondering face is treasure enough, he thought to himself, as she departed with delicate, deliberate steps, as if afraid of shattering the spell, or waking from her dream, still hurting and deeper in debt.

He placed his few articles back in the bag, offering a quick prayer of thanksgiving for being an instrument of healing. Someone was approaching. He heard the slapping sound sandals made on the hard packed dirt in front of his home. Turning he saw a familiar figure framed in the doorway, and his heart leapt in joy.

“Timothy, how are you, good friend” he asked. “What do you think of it?”

“ I can certainly vouch for the accuracy in the parts where I’m mentioned. And the rest of it seems to agree with what the others have said and are teaching. Your God fearing friend will certainly appreciate how carefully you’ve laid it out.

Others are writing this out, too. Many of the eyewitnesses are dead and dying, and he has not yet returned. We don’t know how much longer, so it’s important that faithful witnesses commit this to writing.”

The two paused for a long time, each remembering close friends, now gone, teachers, mentors, people they’d gone to war with, and it was a war, an incursion of Resurrection promise into a world under the iron grip of a relentless and crafty enemy.

The healer placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “When I started writing this down, it was as much for my own understanding as anyone else’s. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to Mary and John here at Ephesus. They’ve added a lot of detail about his life and teaching, and I’m naturally inclined to organize my material chronologically. It’s the way God made me,” he laughed. “But I also sensed the importance of getting this down in writing. There are already so many who distort the story and their roles in it and I want to be sure when people hear the good news the first time, they get it right. I felt the presence of God so strongly as I wrote. Some part of me, the carnal part, still craves the approval of others, but deep down I know I wrote it to please God, and will have to be satisfied that what little I could do will be enough.”

“The little you have done, my friend, is more than good. It breathes the very power of Christ. The churches have started passing around copies to be read along with Paul’s letters and Matthew and Marks’s gospels.”

Luke 1:1-4 (NASB) Inasmuch as many have under taken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word have handed them down to us, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theopholis, so that you might know the exact truth about the things you may have been taught.

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